Beckon (9 page)

Jack grunted. “Look . . . I really don't know what they are. I'm guessing they're an entirely new species.”

“And you say they're poisonous?”

Jack shuddered again as his mind replayed Rudy's gruesome death. “My friend died from a bite in only a few minutes.”

At that point Browne returned with a guy Jack assumed was Carson. He had a couple days' growth of black stubble on his square jaw and wore a tan shirt with a sheriff patch and a silver badge. A gun holster hugged his waist and a weathered black cowboy hat rode tight and low on his forehead.

Carson stood in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips. “Malcolm here tells me you had some kind of caving accident.” His voice was gravelly and terse.

“Uh . . . yes.”

“Some members of your party died?”

“Yes, two of my friends.”

“And where exactly is this cave?”

Jack pointed out the front window. “Somewhere under those mountains.”

Carson raised an eyebrow and produced a small notepad from his belt and a pen from his shirt pocket. “So why don't you start from the beginning.”

Jack was hesitant at first but started to relate the story of his expedition. He decided to leave out the details about his father but told the rest exactly as it had happened. To hear himself tell the tale, Jack decided it all sounded too incredible to believe. Ancient Indian legends, giant millipedes and beetles, and enormous carnivorous spiders . . . like something out of a bad science fiction movie.

Then when Jack got to the part about the N'watu, he was sure they would think he was psychotic. But instead they all listened quietly, and when Jack had finished, no one said a word for a long moment.

Carson stared at Jack from under the brim of his hat. “You're saying there's a tribe of Indians living inside this cave too?”

Jack nodded. “I don't know exactly how many of them there are, or if they actually
live
inside the cave or what . . . but from what I could see, I can't think of any other explanation.”

“And you came out here to study them?” Carson said.

Jack sighed. He was growing weary of all the questions. “Look, I . . . I know this all sounds crazy, but I'm telling you, I saw them—and those spider things—with my own eyes.”

Carson leaned close. “Have you told anyone else about this?”

“No—I told you, I just managed to find my way out of the cave. You're the first people I've seen since I got out of there.”

“All right . . .” Carson drew in a long breath as he paced around the room. “Where'd you say you parked your vehicle?”

Jack shrugged. “I . . . I don't know exactly. It was near a bridge where we picked up the trail.”

“This trail to the waterfall at the head of White Eagle Creek?”

Jack was starting to get a headache. “Can we please contact the state patrol or whoever we need to contact? My best friend died in that cave, and I have to tell his family.”

Carson cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I'll contact the authorities. I think right now you just need medical attention.”

Jack blinked and shook his head. “I'm
fine
. We have to
do
something.”

Henderson spoke up. “Listen, you've obviously been through some major psychological trauma—not to mention physical. I think it would be best for you to get some rest and—”

“I don't want to rest.” Jack stood, his anger coming to a head. “I need to get out of here and find a phone!”

Carson stood by the doorway, tapping his holster and shaking his head. “Well, I'm afraid you're not going anywhere.”

“What?” Jack's face flushed with anger but then quickly faded. The three men just stared at him, their expressions darker now and more menacing.

Jack backed away from them. “What's going on? Who are you people?”

A chill of fear rose inside his chest. What kind of town was this?

Part II

Elina

/  //  /

Each man must grant himself the emotions that he needs and the morality that suits him.

Remy de Gourmont,

Selected Writings

Chapter 16

Western Wyoming

One day earlier

Deep down, Elina Gutierrez knew she was going to die. But she also knew she wasn't going down without a fight.

She dashed through the woods clutching her Browning .40-caliber pistol as the rain beat down on her in waves, drenching her short dark hair and clothes. Her feet slipped on the muddy slope and she stumbled across the uneven terrain, slamming into a tree trunk. She slumped to the ground, groaning and sucking in the thin mountain air with agonizing breaths.

Somewhere in the woods behind her, she could hear the voices.

They were getting closer.

She pushed herself to her feet and continued on, weaving between tree trunks, ducking beneath some branches and cursing as others slapped across her face, slicing off bits of flesh. She fought to keep her balance over rain-slicked rocks and gnarled tree roots. Then she spotted something through the mist and trees ahead: a smooth, flat strip of asphalt cutting laterally across the slope.

The road!

Heart pounding, head spinning, and ribs throbbing, Elina could feel herself on the verge of losing consciousness. But she couldn't now. Not here. She had to keep moving.

She had to get off this mountain.

She'd arrived in Wyoming two days earlier looking for answers but had only found more questions. For the last eight hours she'd camped out on the wooded bluff, peering through a telephoto lens into the windows of a massive, rustic lodge some 250 yards away.

The brooding mansion jutted out of the mountainside like a great diadem of log and stone. Perched in the shadow of the jagged peak, its weathered timbers appeared to have borne the brunt of many winters. The central hall extended out to the edge of a cliff, where its huge windows overlooked the little town huddled at the base of the mountain and the rough, rolling countryside beyond.

But what Elina hadn't known was that while she had been busy watching the occupants of the lodge,
they
had been watching
her
.

It was just after noon when she heard the first echoes of voices over the rain and knew she had been found out. She jammed her gear into her backpack, abandoned her makeshift rain shelter, and scurried down the mountainside.

Now she could hear the voices echoing in the woods behind her, barking out orders to each other. They were hunting her.

But if she could reach the highway, she'd be able to get to her car.

The sound of heavy footsteps came pounding through the mud directly behind her, and a husky voice called out, “Here she is!”

Elina turned and raised her Browning as a large silhouette burst through the trees. He came into focus: a big man wearing a dark-green nylon jacket and a black cap, with a short-barrel shotgun in his grasp. Elina gritted her teeth and squeezed off two shots.

Her pursuer lurched backward with a look of surprise on his face. His shotgun fired wide, and Elina heard the pellets crack through the branches beside her head. His feet slipped into the air, and he landed on his back in the mud.

Time seemed to slow as Elina stared at the man writhing on the ground. He groaned and wheezed, pushing his feet against the mud. Then his body shuddered and went limp. Elina knew she had hit him square in the chest. Both shots. He wouldn't be getting up.

It was the second time in her life that she had killed a man.

She heard more yelling off in the woods and shook herself to her senses. The others had heard the gunshots and were converging on her location. She wasn't out of danger yet—in fact, now she was in even deeper trouble. She pushed through the pine trees until suddenly the ground fell away beneath her and she tumbled down a rocky embankment onto the shoulder of the road. Sharp gravel bit into the palms of her hands, and the Browning skittered across the wet pavement.

Elina rolled to her feet as a rust-colored pickup swerved and skidded to a halt a few yards away. The doors opened, two men emerged, and Elina found herself staring into the barrel of another shotgun.

“Don't even think about it,” the guy with the gun growled at her. He was a brawny ox of a man with a dark goatee on his jaw.

The driver was smaller and leaner with reddish hair and a thick red mustache. He snatched up her Browning from across the road and stuck it in his belt. Then he forced Elina to lie facedown on the wet asphalt while he checked her for additional weapons. After that he yanked her up to her knees, tore the pack off her shoulders, and riffled through it, pulling out her scope and digital camera.

“Well, look-a here,” he said. “Whatcha doin' with all this? Some bird-watching, maybe?”

“That's right.” Elina grimaced defiantly. “I'm an ornithologist.”

The guy with the shotgun frowned. “A what?”

The driver chuckled. “So you got a sense of humor. We'll see how long that lasts.”

At that point two more men emerged from the woods, both clad in camouflage jackets and carrying rifles. They slid down the embankment onto the road.

“She shot Carson!” one of them yelled, pointing back into the brush. “I think . . . I think he might be dead.”

The driver swore and threw down the backpack. He grabbed Elina by the collar and pressed the barrel of her Browning against her forehead. The four of them surrounded her as she fought to stay focused.

Remember your training. . . . Stay calm and look for an opportunity.

The driver pulled her close, still pressing the gun to her head. “So you think you're a tough little
chica
, huh? You can shoot a gun? Maybe we'll have a little fun with you first.”

The others grunted in a primal chorus of approval. Like a clan of cavemen.

“Knock it off!”

The voice came from the woods. The men backed away, and Elina could see the man she had shot—the one they called Carson—standing at the top of the embankment, clutching his chest. He looked pale and like he was in a fair amount of pain, but he was alive nonetheless. Very much alive.

Elina frowned. Kevlar. He must've been wearing Kevlar.

“We gotta bring her to town,” he said. “Vale wants to talk to her.”

Elina winced as they forced her hands behind her back and secured her wrists with a set of plastic zip ties. Then they hauled her into the bed of the pickup and three of the men climbed up with her while Carson and the driver got inside the cab. They turned the truck around and headed up the road.

The plastic ties dug into her wrists, but Elina knew the pain was the least of her worries now. She was completely cut off with no backup. No one even knew exactly where she was. She closed her eyes and prayed silently. And as she did, the irony struck her. Four months ago, she wouldn't have even thought about prayer. Four months ago, she was brash and hotheaded. Self-reliant and determined. Most people would have just called her angry. Four months ago, she'd had absolutely no use for God.

But that was then.

Now she sat in the back of the truck, flooded with fear and second guesses, praying desperately.

The road snaked through the pine forest. She could see patches of a jagged gray mountainside through the branches, and within half a mile they came into a clearing. The town ahead looked like little more than a clutch of ramshackle buildings hiding in the embrace of a looming mountain. A damp mist cloaked the shops and storefronts and houses, casting them in dreary silhouettes.

At the edge of town they passed a rough-hewn timber sign mounted to a pair of log posts along the side of the road. Elina shuddered as she saw the letters carved into the wood.

Welcome to Beckon. You're not here by chance.

Chapter 17

Midway through town, the pickup truck turned up a twisting gravel road that led to the massive stone-and-timber house. Elina tried to control her fear as they passed through a set of iron gates and pulled to a stop at the entrance, where an enormous log-beam portico loomed over a pair of ornate wooden doors.

Carson hauled her out of the truck and marched her through the front doors into a spacious, stone-tiled foyer. The decor was dark and rustic—sort of a Gothic Wild West, Elina thought—with a whole menagerie of stuffed animal heads and antlers populating nearly every wall. To one side of the foyer a wide log staircase curled up to the second-floor balcony above them.

A thin, hawk-nosed woman greeted them as they entered. Her fair complexion was surprisingly soft and unblemished—with the exception of the dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn't slept in days. Elina guessed she was young, maybe in her twenties, but her burgundy hair was pulled back in a tight bun that made her look older. In fact, with a little mascara and lipstick—and of course a whole different hairstyle—the woman might have actually been attractive.

She looked at Elina for a long moment, and Elina could see some trace of emotion in her pale-blue eyes but couldn't quite make out what it was. Surprise? Anger? Fear? Or maybe disgust?

“This is her?” the woman asked at length.

“Yeah.” Carson handed her the backpack. “He said he wanted her alive. Said he wanted to talk to her.”

The woman took the pack and gestured to the hallway behind her. “He's just sitting down to lunch. Give me five minutes.”

She turned and slipped down the hall while Carson yanked Elina over to a bench near the staircase.

“Sit down and keep quiet,” he said.

Elina tried to get a better look at his chest. She spotted the holes in the jacket where the bullets had penetrated, but she couldn't see much of what he was wearing underneath. A black shirt of some sort. She wondered if maybe it was some kind of new ultrathin Kevlar design. After a few minutes she gathered her courage and ventured a question.

“So what happened to you? You should be dead.”

“Shut up.”

“Y'know, you really freaked me out.”

“I said,
shut up
.”

“All right, all right . . . I'm just saying . . . I shot you nearly point blank. I thought I watched you die.”

“Well, you were mistaken.”

“So . . . what? You got some kind of special Kevlar vest or something?”

“Something like that.” Carson snatched a fistful of her black hair and yanked her head backward. “Now
shut up
.”

Elina decided to cooperate for the time being. She wasn't going to get any more information out of Carson anyway. He was obviously pretty high up in whatever organizational structure they had in this town, but he was still subservient to this Vale character, whoever he was.

After several minutes the burgundy-haired woman peeked her head back into the foyer and waved them in. Carson nodded, pulled Elina to her feet, and shoved her along the hallway. They passed an enormous great room with a massive stone fireplace and a wide bank of windows. Next they came to the formal dining hall, which held a long, medieval-looking table. Several chairs were lined up along each side with the largest chair situated at the head of the table. The only seat that was occupied.

The man seated at the head was clearly engrossed in his meal. Elina could see it consisted of a thick red steak—very red—with a baked potato and what looked like asparagus. He had a bottle of red wine and a half-filled glass on his right; on his left was a brown folder.

Elina had gotten only fleeting glimpses of Vale through her scope, but now she saw he was a rather pale, sharp-featured man. And his complexion looked all the more pallid contrasted against his shoulder-length, jet-black hair. He was clean-shaven except for the narrow black tuft of well-groomed fuzz beneath his lower lip.

But Elina quickly noticed that his most striking feature was his eyes. When he looked at her, she could see they held a pale-green hue—nearly yellow. They were haunting eyes, like an animal's. And Elina felt almost as if a wolf were staring at her.

He chewed his steak slowly as he looked her over. Elina stood just inside the doorway with Carson right behind her; the woman had taken up a position behind Vale's right shoulder.

Vale chewed a mouthful of meat without saying a word and motioned her to come closer. She took a few hesitant steps into the room until she stood at the foot of the table.

“Did you know,” Vale said through a mouthful of steak, “it was Wyoming that first gave women the right to vote?”

He sipped some wine, swirled it in his mouth, and swallowed. His voice was considerably deeper than Elina had expected. She glanced back at Carson, wondering what exactly Vale meant by the comment.

Vale sliced another piece of steak and stuck it in his mouth. “And we were the first state to elect a woman governor. Did you know
that
?”

Elina shook her head. “I'm . . . not exactly following your train of thought here.”

Vale shrugged. “I'm simply saying that the people of Wyoming have always been at the forefront of societal evolution. We're very progressive, forward-thinking people.”

“Okay?” Elina made no effort to hide her confusion.

“My point being—” Vale set down his utensils and dabbed his lips with a napkin—“that despite how rustic and remote our town might appear to you, don't mistake us for bucolic simpletons. Okay, Miss Gutierrez?”

“Fine.”

Vale glanced at the folder beside him. “Should I call you
Officer
Gutierrez?” He flipped open the folder and browsed the top sheet. “Or . . . is it
ex
-officer? I'm not sure how this whole administrative leave thing works. You did turn in your badge, yes?”

“Wow, so you guys know how to google,” Elina muttered. “I'm impressed.”

Vale looked mildly amused. “You know, for what it's worth, I think you did the right thing. I really do. Even though this kid didn't have a gun . . . and wasn't technically committing a crime. I'm sure he would've gotten around to it sooner or later. It was just a matter of time. He had all the classic stats going for him, right? Single mom, no real father to speak of. The kid was just a crime waiting to happen.”

Elina's jaw tightened. Obviously Vale's burgundy lady had gone through her bag and run some sort of background check while Elina was waiting out in the foyer. It wouldn't have taken much to find her recent history with the LAPD. The shooting incident four months earlier had been highly publicized and commented on by all the local news outlets—even a national program had picked up the story. Elina never imagined she'd become the center of such a media circus in only her second year on the force.

She never thought her dream of becoming a cop would turn into a nightmare so fast.

“Whatever,” she grunted.

Vale leaned back and raised an eyebrow. “Though it appears you've not quite come to terms with the incident, hmm? Not made peace with yourself yet?”

“Don't worry about me.”

“Well, regardless, I'm certain the people of LA are safer with one less potential criminal on the streets. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it if I were you. Some people the world is just better off without.”

Elina snorted. “So is that your thing? You're some kind of therapist?”

“Hardly.” Vale swirled the wine in his glass. “I just wanted to put our conversation into context for you.” He took a sip. “I'm actually far more interested in what brings you from the big city to our little town. And what possessed you to trespass on my property and spy on my home.”

Elina forced a tone of confidence. “Oh, I think we both know why I'm here.”

Vale spread his palms. “I'm afraid you have me at a bit of a disadvantage, Officer Gutierrez. Apparently only one of us knows.”

“I'm looking for my cousin. He disappeared last month, and his family hasn't heard from him since.”

“Ah, a missing persons case,” Vale said.

“He had come here to find work. His sister said she saw him getting into a van with Nevada plates four weeks ago. A plain white van. She said it comes around every few weeks promising work in Las Vegas.”

“So it would seem this cousin of yours is—what's the politically correct term?—an
undocumented
worker?”

“He was just looking for work. He was trying to—”

“So why aren't you looking in Las Vegas?”

“Because I followed that van the next time it came around. And you want to hear something funny? It didn't go to Las Vegas. But I'll give you one guess where it did go.”

Vale shook his head. “Well, Miss Former Officer Gutierrez, Wyoming is a little out of your jurisdiction, isn't it?”

“It's a personal investigation.”

“I'm sure the taxpayers of Los Angeles would be happy to know you're making productive use of your free time. But please forgive me if I don't feel compelled to cooperate with your
personal
investigation.”

“I wasn't expecting you to.”

Vale downed the last of his wine. “And I don't appreciate strangers who trespass on my property, invade my privacy, and accuse me of sordid activities.”

“I just want to know where my cousin is.”

“Then I suggest you start with the FBI. Or better yet, the INS.”

“Look . . .” Elina decided to try a less confrontational approach and softened her voice. “I'm not trying to . . . to turn this into a federal investigation. I just want to find my cousin. To make sure he's safe. And let him know his family is worried about him.”

“I already told you I can't help you with—”

“Javier.”

Vale blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Javier Sanchez. That's his name.”

“I'm sorry, Miss Gutierrez, but we really have nothing further to talk about.”

“What did you do with them? There were four other men who got into that van, and I know it brought them here.”

Vale's gaze grew cold. “My patience is wearing thin. I suggest you forget these ridiculous accusations and—”

“The van's plates are registered to a dummy corporation in Nevada that pays all the fees and insurance.” Elina was through playing this game. It was time to lay her cards on the table. “But guess who owns that corporation? Vale Corp International. That's
your
company, isn't it? That was
your
van. Now what did you do with those people?”

Vale stared at her for a long moment. Then he leaned back in his chair and puffed out his cheeks in a long sigh. “Very well, then. You know, when they first brought you here, there was actually a small chance that I could let you go. But only a
very
small chance.”

“I'd be careful about threatening me if I were you.”

Vale was silent for several seconds, but his cold, yellow-green gaze never wavered.
“Elina,”
he said at length. “Do you know what your name means?”

“What?”

“It means ‘shining light.' Ironic, since that's exactly what you'll need where you're going.”

“Careful, Mr. Vale,” Elina said, concentrating on keeping her voice from quivering. “People know I'm here. They . . . they know what I found—”

“Yes, yes, people know where you are.” Vale drummed his fingers on the table. “And I'm sure they'll come looking for you. They'll probably search for months. And it'll be a big story for a while—they'll have your picture on all the networks. They may even find your abandoned car on a remote highway somewhere in a neighboring state. But in the end they won't find you. Not even a trace.” He shook his head. “They never do.”